Advent 2C
In the name of God: who is purity, nourishment, and refreshment. Amen.
One of the realities of marriage that I’ve uncovered over the last years of my life with Michael – and really, I think it’s more a reality of what it means to know love – but one of those realities is a deeper realization of the degree to which it brings me joy for Michael to experience joy. It’s why I enjoy giving presents. And it’s also part of why most of our vacations have taken the shape that they have.
Whenever we travel, Michael enjoys going on factory tours. To be fair, I enjoy it, too, but a big part of my own enjoyment is sharing his joy. And because Michael enjoys them so much, we’ve made it a point in many of our vacations to try to find factory tours and incorporate them into our plans.
But the thing is, Michael makes the same sort of accommodation for me. One of my quirks is that I enjoy visiting Presidential Libraries and Museums and their other historical sites. So, if our travels take us anywhere near one of those, he always agrees to let us take a little side trip and visit.
But the one non-negotiable for me for any summer vacation is a swimming pool. I get grumpy if a summer goes by and I haven’t had some time baking in the sun while cooled, floating in a pool of water. So, even before I have a chance to start making plans, Michael is usually on the case – making sure I get some time in the water.
Water is such an interesting Christian symbol. But more than a symbol, we need water to survive. Water falls from the sky, like a gift from heaven giving nourishment to the earth. It quenches our thirst – both our own, as people, but also through the whole of creation. Without it, plants become dry and brittle, animals die, and the earth hardens and cracks. As we’ve seen around here lately, without it, the world can become more dangerous. We need the water to keep the fires at bay. And, in our daily lives, we need the water to wash away impurities – things that can make us sick; things that can contaminate our food and our bodies.
In my life as a priest, it’s become a meaningful little part of my own spiritual discipline each week to stand over the water in our baptismal font, to touch the water, and to pray for God’s blessing on it. The words change from week to week, but there is always some piece of the prayer where I thank God for these essential aspects of water: that it nourishes, that it refreshes, that it washes. And I pray that God will use it to make us mindful of God’s many blessings – through and beyond the water. That God will use our prayers, held in the water, to make us ready to meet God where we are.
In each of our readings today, there is something about that kind of preparation and purity.
In the first reading, the Prophet speaks of the need for purity as a form preparation. The people are told that God is coming – that once again, God will inhabit the center of worship – that God will be in the midst of them. And God’s messenger will prepare the way by refining the people into their purest iterations of themselves. And that their purity will be pleasing to God.
And Paul, in his letter to the Philippians that we read from today, calls the people to spiritual purity. He says, “this my prayer, that your love may overflow [like water] more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness.”
Water is a powerful symbol in our faith. And it has been since before Christ. While our tradition has taken the symbol in a different direction, water was used in the spiritual practices of our ancient Jewish forebears, in their own approach to baptism. In Jewish baptism, the faithful would be immersed in living water – flowing water occurring naturally on the earth. The bowl like we have in the back wouldn’t cut it – and not just because there’s not enough room to fully immerse ourselves in it. In their faith, the water was literally about washing away sin – washing away the impurities that might keep us from truly knowing God. Our approach makes baptism more about birth – about adoption into the faith. But for Jewish baptism, the water needed to move. It needed to actively wash away the impurities – not just wash them off, wash them away.
I’m reminded of a moment from the old sitcom, The Brady Bunch. The family was on a vacation and they visited the Grand Canyon. As they stood over this massive landscape carved deep by the trickle of the Colorado River, Bobby said that suddenly something made sense for him. What was that, his father asked? “Now I know why you get so mad when we leave the faucet dripping.”
Water has power. In a glass it seems malleable – soft, even. Even in a pool, where it has a bit more power, it’s still contained. But when it’s loose, when it’s given a little time – it can carve a canyon. It can cut through the earth.
John the Baptist knew the power of water. It was the medium through which he shared the good news of God. He knew that it could nourish and refresh and purify, and he knew that it could cut and drown. He knew that it could level the playing field.
So, John heard the word of God and began preaching in the wilderness. The wilderness was a harsh place. A place of scarcity. It was a place where the value and the power of water was even more pronounced. So, it’s no accident that he chose these words from the Prophet Isaiah as the basis of his preaching: “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth.” These are all things that water can do. Water can fill the low places. Water can bring down mountains. Water can carve direct paths through jagged ones and it can smooth out the rough edges.
This is how we make way for a new understanding of God. We use water, the Baptist said. We harness the powerful force of water through the spiritual gift of baptism to prepare ourselves and the world we inhabit to see God.
To put it a little more simply: we use the gifts God has already given us. Then we’ll see God more clearly.
When we hear that we’re meant to bring down mountains and fill up valleys and redraw paths and harness deep spiritual purity – it can all feel like a lot. It can feel like it’s more than we’re capable of doing. The call to prepare the way for a new incarnation of God can feel insurmountable.
But the example of John is that we should use the gifts God has already given us. Use what we know. The impacts of preparing the way for God are massive, but we already hold the tools we need. God has already given us the gifts. God’s call is never outside of our reach, and it isn’t now. The call is simply to find our gifts and to use them.
You may remember a couple of years ago, the Stewardship Commission focused for a while on that Spiritual Gifts Inventory that was designed by a Lutheran organization. We invited you to take the assessment online and to consider what it might be revealing about your own spiritual gifts.
I know several people told me about their sense of surprise when they read about some of the spiritual gifts that the exercise told them they had. In each of those cases, I wasn’t remotely surprised. What they shared with me reflected pretty clearly my own experiences of each of them.
Sometimes it’s hard for us to see our own gifts. But we do all have them. None of us has every gift, but all of us have some gift. And together, our gifts fill in the gaps – the low places. They remove obstables, smooth out rough edges, and make the paths we’re called to follow easier to navigate.
When we recognize these gifts, and when we use them as God intends, we are taking steps to prepare the way for a new understand of God to come into our lives, into our communities, and into the world. When we use the gifts God has given us, we are stepping closer to God’s dream for us, and for the world as a whole.
Prepare the way. Prepare the way for the incarnation of Christ. Prepare the way for a new understanding of God, even now.
It sounds like a lot. And, I guess, in the end, it is a lot. But getting there – achieving that – it’s already within our grasp. God has given us and is still giving us the tools we need. John used water. Just simple, ordinary water. What can you use?
It is a lot. But so are our gifts. We are so deeply loved that God finds joy in giving us these gifts. The call is great, but the gifts we’re given to answer it are even greater. Amen.
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